Humax LGB-19DRT

This 19-incher comes with two noteworthy quirks: a huge speaker module delivering sound quality as meaty and tasty as a half-pound cheeseburger; and built-in recording courtesy of an external hard disk. This connects up via USB and, while that isn’t the most elegant option — actually building it into the TV’s body would look way better — it does mean it can be hooked up to a PC and loaded up with MP3s for playback via the telly. Which is nice, if you like the idea of listening to music through your television. It also means you can back up your TV recordings on your PC, although we predict that’s a feature that’ll be used by approximately .0001 percent of the people who buy this telly.

Picture quality from the built-in Freeview is brilliantly crisp and clean, with good motion handling in games. There’s an HDMI socket for lashing up hi-def gear, although the screen’s a bit too tiny to make that truly worthwhile. On the audio side, the beefy speakers mean sonic performance is way better than it should be on such a small telly.

On the design and styling front, we’d be lying if we said this was much of a looker, but it’s not the most hideous set around either, despite the hulking speakers ‘neath the screen. We reckon it might be the perfect second screen for the kitchen worktop or bedroom.